The present invention relates to a universal joint for use in automotive vehicles or heavy-duty equipment which must operate under severe environmental conditions. If excessive wear is to be prevented in use of the joint, the bearings forming a part of the joint must be adequately lubricated and protected from contamination by dirt or other foreign matter. Thus, adequate lubricant must be retained in the bearing area.
Also, it is well known that means must be used to keep the bearings from falling off of the spider during shipping and handling. Otherwise, if the bearing fell off the spider, the needle bearings could also drop off and cause trouble during reassembly and/or dirt could enter the bearing. To prevent this in the past, a wire was welded across the bearings to hold them onto the spiders.
It is further known that a rubber seal was necessary to retain lubricant in the bearing and exclude contamination and, as shown by tests, that a dust shield was required over the seal to keep abrasive material from impinging on the rubber sealing lip so the seal does not wear or ingest dirt into the seal around the lip due to oscillation of the joint. Therefore, a dust shield was pressed onto the spider to encompass and protect the resilient seal. However, prior seals developed to overcome these problems and prolong the operating life of the universal joint were not satisfactory because foreign matter entered the bearing area and resulted in an unacceptably high rate of wear. The present invention provides a sealing mechanism to overcome the above described problems in universal joint applications.